Chavakani writing systems

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Chengjiang
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Chavakani writing systems

Post by Chengjiang »

I want to develop a syllabary for Chavakani and the other Chondru languages to use. I was going to develop it from simplification of a set of logographic characters, which it coexists with. (The syllabary being a "demotic" script used for everyday purposes and the logographic script being the "hieratic" counterpart used for official and religious documents.) The logographic system is quite old and was adopted by the Chondru many centuries ago from some other group in their area; I haven't actually decided much of anything about this other culture yet.

I'm concerned that the resulting syllabary will end up with more in common with Japanese kana systems than I'd like, since these are the most prolific, best-documented example of a syllabary derived from logograms I'm aware of. What are some things I can do to differentiate these paired writing systems from kana and kanji? At the moment the main idea I've got is to make their forms different via a different preferred writing medium; since heartland Chondru territory is tropical forest I was thinking that during the formative period of the syllabary (and the contemporary version of the logograms) the most common method of writing was carving characters in wood, which would give them very angular forms made of straight lines, perhaps resembling Germanic runes. What else can I do to make it distinctive?

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For reference, here's the phonology of Chavakani, copied (slightly modified, as it was revised during the thread) from this thread:

Nasals: /m n ɲ ŋ/ <m n ny ng'>
Prenasalized: /ᵐb ⁿd ⁿdʒ ᵑɡ/ <mb nd nj ng>
Stops/Affricate: /p t tʃ k ʔ/ <p t ch k '>
Fricatives: /f s h/ <f s h>
Other: /w ɾ j/ <v/w r y>

Vowels: /i u e o a/ <i u e o a>

(/w/ is realized as [w] after consonants and in this context is written <w>; word-initially and after vowels it is realized [β] and written <v>.)

Only open syllables are allowed. Onsets may consist of any single consonant, most single consonants followed by /w/, or any non-palatal, non-glottal stop followed by /ɾ/. All polyphthongs are transparently reducible to a sequence of vowels.

Chavakani distinguishes low, high, and falling tones, with high tones being slightly more marked than low and falling significantly more marked than the others.

Relevant to this thread: While the syllabary developed among the set of dialects that includes Chavakani and its close relatives, and most members of this group have variations on the same base set of sounds as Chavakani (e.g. simple voiced stops instead of prenasalized stops, alveolar instead of palatoalveolar sibilants, deleted glottals, different tones), one major type of segment that Chavakani doesn't distinguish while many of its neighbors do is what I'll call <đ>. This historical segment has a wide variety of realizations across West Chondru dialects, such as [l], [z], [j], and [v]; they descend from Proto-West Chondru [ð]. In Chavakani it merged with /ɾ/ word-intially and was deleted elsewhere. At any rate, this syllabary will probably have distinct characters for syllables beginning with đ even if Chavakani doesn't typically use them.
[ʈʂʰɤŋtɕjɑŋ], or whatever you can comfortably pronounce that's close to that

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Re: Chavakani writing systems

Post by mèþru »

Look at some conlang examples of syllabaries, like Axunaic. Look at some real life examples, like Ancient Egyptian or cuneiform. As the syllabary is less ceremonial, it might be more cursive/linking and have more regional variation than the strict logograph forms. The real-life preferred writing material in South Asia and Southeastern Asia was dried palm leaves. Wood, unless it is specially prepared or something, would rot quickly in tropical areas. Other things that can be done to make it distinctive:
  • change directionality.
  • reduce the allowed amount of strokes
  • use the same form as the logographs. Syllabic usage would be obvious as the two don't mix and you have the same morphemes/syllables repeated over and over.
  • arrange the syllables within a single word into groups like how featural alphabet arranges elements in groups to create syllables
  • Mix and match the above
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Re: Chavakani writing systems

Post by Burke »

First time back in a while, glad to se this is still going along!
I'm concerned that the resulting syllabary will end up with more in common with Japanese kana systems than I'd like
Then might I suggest avoiding the direction altogether. Maybe you can consider something along the lines of what developed from Egypt in Africa:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meroitic_ ... Principles

Meroitic, which I have a bad tendency of calling Meteoric because it sounds cool, developed an alphabet of sorts following Egypt. The upper part of the page shows the hieroglyph -> letter correspondence. I know this sort of breaks your syllabary idea a bit, but using an assumed vowel for each consonant that can be overwritten by a following one breaks the kana pattern. Chavakani can follow this sort of easily given the syllable structure too, maybe a few kludges for complex onsets, but that never hurt anyone.

I don't know how you'd want to deal with tone in it though. I sort of like imperfect scripts, so my gut says to ignore it altogether; otherwise, maybe some sort of Thai influence could arise. That would be interesting to see such a conflux.
I was thinking that during the formative period of the syllabary (and the contemporary version of the logograms) the most common method of writing was carving characters in wood
Maybe one thing to really set it apart, should you choose to go this route, is the tool as well. If they're using knive of any sort to carve into the wood, you've got a good impetus for writing that goes from the bottom to the top, since only the dumb boyscouts cut the knife towards their own guts over and over. Or at least upward facing characters in appearance.
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Re: Chavakani writing systems

Post by Chengjiang »

mèþru raises an important point: Wood isn't durable enough in the biome where this system developed to be a suitable writing medium. I think I'll imitate the indigenous Southeast Asian systems you mentioned and use whatever tough leaves I decide are present. And study those systems for patterns in letterforms.

Writing direction can't really be used to differentiate this system from kana effectively since kana have been written downward, right to left, and left to right. Having said that, as this system will have ~100 different glyphs, I don't think the syllabic glyphs will be as simplified as kana if they're simplified from the logograms at all.
Burke wrote: I know this sort of breaks your syllabary idea a bit, but using an assumed vowel for each consonant that can be overwritten by a following one breaks the kana pattern. Chavakani can follow this sort of easily given the syllable structure too, maybe a few kludges for complex onsets, but that never hurt anyone.
While /a/ is common enough in Chavakani (about twice as common as any one of the other vowels, I think) that giving all consonants an assumed /a/ and making it an abugida could work, I think I'd still prefer a syllabary, even though it's somewhat more work for me. The small number of possible syllables makes it too tempting to ignore. Also, Chavakani allows many possible vowel combinations as diphthongs and assumed /a/ for characters with addition of a vowel letter to indicate other vowels kind of messes with that unless there are a large number of diphthong characters, which I don't really want.
I don't know how you'd want to deal with tone in it though. I sort of like imperfect scripts, so my gut says to ignore it altogether; otherwise, maybe some sort of Thai influence could arise. That would be interesting to see such a conflux.
I've already decided tone will not normally be marked. Thai's tone marking derives from characters that used to indicate consonants that have since merged, anyway, and the main source of tone in Chavakani and other West Chondru languages is two types of phonation/tone in Proto-Chondru and wholesale deletion of segments, both of which are from long before the logographic system was even adopted, let alone began taking on any phonetic character. Also, I, too, rather like imperfect systems.
[ʈʂʰɤŋtɕjɑŋ], or whatever you can comfortably pronounce that's close to that

Formerly known as Primordial Soup

Supporter of use of [ȶ ȡ ȵ ȴ] in transcription

It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a 青.

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